The Impact of Sandstone Strength's Behavior as a Result of Temperature Changes in Water Injectors

Tovar, Juan; Navarro, William

doi:10.2118/113825-ms

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 6 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Reservoir mechanical properties and well design have been previously documented (Tovar 2008, Tovar et al 2010. Figure 5 illustrates the formation breakdown pressure and minimum horizontal stress at the reservoir.…”

Section: Original Nautchlan Reservoir and Fluid Propertiesmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…TIF is typically associated with a significant reduction in injection pressures (and an increase in injection rate) in water injection wells. In some cases operators introduce a cooling effect by circulating injection fluid (including produced water) through long piping arrangements in order to dissipate the heat carried and reduce its temperature (Tovar & Navarro 2008) prior to injection. The benefit of an engineered use of TIF as a methodology to initiate or enhance injectivity in water injection wells is not obvious as TIFS are commonly considered to be a natural consequence of the injection process.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Thermal Fracturing in High and Low Permeability Sandstone Reservoir in the North Sea

Perdomo¹,

Tovar²,

Smith³

et al. 2013

Proceedings

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Thermally induced fractures, TIFs, occur in almost every water injection well. They are the result of the cooling of the reservoir rock as water reaches the sand face and near wellbore area. This cooling generates a contraction in the rock that results in a change in reservoir mechanical properties and the near wellbore stress conditions. The importance of understanding and engineering the process of TIFs is quite often underestimated, as TIFs are assumed to happen as under normal injection conditions. However, how TIFs are generated has a large impact on areas such as casing and reservoir isolation, well integrity, injectivity profile and eventually pressure support or water disposal strategies. This paper presents the results of technical and field efforts carried out to overcome a variety of problems in water injection wells in two (2) particular types of reservoir: a high permeability (> 0.8 Darcy) and a very low permeability (< 0.03 Darcy); both sandstones located in the North Sea. Work was carried out in four(4) wells to utilize TIFs as a tool to maximize water injection and minimize well and reservoir integrity issues. This paper presents in detail the design process, its operational implementation and the results obtained for each reservoir. In both types of reservoirs, TIFs has allowed us to restore long term injectivity by overcoming a large number of constraints such as high levels of formation damage, varying formation strength for different type sand face completion design (open hole and cased/perforated) and well configurations. We also describe the science and details of the operational characteristics, results and evaluation methods used to restore or improve water injection. We conclude that TIFs plays an important role in water injection wells and can be used, among other things, to initiate injectivity, overcome high injection pressures, minimize well integrity issues and fulfil its main objective (maximum injectivity). TIFs can therefore have a significant economic impact and limit the effect of impaired injectivity over time.

show abstract

Section: Original Nautchlan Reservoir and Fluid Propertiesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermal Fracturing in High and Low Permeability Sandstone Reservoir in the North Sea

Perdomo¹,

Tovar²,

Smith³

et al. 2013

Proceedings

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Significant injectivity increase has been observed when the formation is thermally fractured by the sudden injection of cooler water, i.e., ⌬T of 50 -70°F with respect to the water originally injected. The most relevant and closest case 3,4 the Marañon basin of Peru, the same basin where Villano is located, reporting a injectivity increases of 100% when the injection water was cooled by a differential of 80°F. In the case of Villano, 4 water coolers were deployed in V-A to induce thermal fractures in injectors V-9 and V-12 by reducing the temperature of the injected water by 20°F.…”

Section: Thermal Induced Fracturesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Integrated Approach to Formation Water Management 2: Field Applications and Best Practices

Correa¹,

Basta²,

Andrade³

et al. 2015

SPE Latin American and Caribbean Petroleum Engineering Conference

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The production of large volumes of formation water is generally accepted as the number one problem affecting the operation of mature oil fields worldwide, as it restricts the production of oil and increases the lifting and processing cost. Water must also be adequately treated and disposed to protect the environment. In fields producing from strong aquifer reservoirs or with waterflooding projects in place, water is generally produced at increasingly large flow rates. As oil production will generally decrease and water production increase, the cost associated with lifting, treating and disposing of water per barrel of produced oil will rise significantly. A water management approach can make a significant difference in the operator bottom line. The water production problem needs also to be timely addressed as a whole, identifying bottlenecks and developing solutions at the reservoir, wellbore, surface facilities and disposal systems.In an earlier publication, Flores and Agip Oil Ecuador (AOE) et al. 1 , presented the integrated water management methodology and solutions to the water problem in the Villano field, located in the amazon rainforest of Ecuador. In the year 2007, the wells, facilities and pipelines in Villano were operating at design limits, while the water cut continued increasing in all the producer wells. The need to cut oil production because of the inability to handle additional water was foreseeable then. The workflow proposed integrated solutions at the reservoir, wellbore, surface facilities, pipelines, and water disposal levels, cohesively assembled to provide viable and cost effective answers. A plant debottlenecking study 2 carried out in year 2011 served to further accelerate the implementation of the most critical water management solutions in the field. Seven years later, the solutions developed and implemented in the field have allowed managing the water problem in a cost effective and efficient manner.The highest impact actions consisted of increasing the injection capacity of the disposal wells by performing Thermal Induced Fractures (TIF) with a ⌬T of only 20°F. Improvements in the dehydrators and tanks to reduce the oil content from 80 ppm to 15 ppm helped improve injectivity by at least 25%. A coiled tubing intervention for cleaning and a further stimulation increased injectivity in one well by nearly 40%. A new disposal well was drilled and, for the first time, hudraulic fractured with proppand includes, resulting in an injectivity improvement in excess of 100% with respect to a conventional completion. This was further increased by another 150% by a TIF. Four new water injection pumps were installed in the Villano A -Pad. A new transfer pump, in combination with drag reducers helped increase by 17% the capacity of the 12 in.pipeline that connects Villano with Central Procesing Facilities (CPF). An additional generator and a new power line were installed for a more efficient energy management and to be able to sustain additional energy demands in the field. Furthermore, the develop...

show abstract

“…History Matching for TIFs Horizontal and vertical injection wells often face the possibility of creating TIFs. The following can result from TIF development in injection wells in waterflooding and non-waterflooding applications [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. i.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Efficient History Matching of Thermally Induced Fractures Using Coupled Geomechanics and Reservoir Simulation

Almarri

2020

Energies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Waterflooding is a common recovery method used to maintain reservoir pressure and improve reservoir oil sweep efficiency. However, injecting cold water into a reservoir alters the state of in-situ formation stress and can result in the formation fracturing. In other words, it can cause the initiation and growth of thermally induced fractures (TIFs), even when the original fracture propagation pressure is not exceeded. TIFs can cause non-uniform distribution of the fluid flow in wellbores, a reduction in sweep efficiency, and early water breakthrough in nearby production wells. Modelling and history matching workflows that consider the dynamic nature of the TIF problem are critical. These workflows improve and validate reservoir and geomechanical models, identify and confirm observed TIF onset and propagation periods, and provide a history-matched sector model with the rock mechanical and thermal properties and stress gradients that can be used with confidence for subsequent studies. Modelling and the underlining assumptions of fluid flow in the TIF and reservoir matrix, as well as geomechanical changes due to cooling of the reservoir during injection, are detailed below. A 3D reservoir simulator coupled with 2D finite element TIF and geomechanical models were used to manually history match an injector (NI6) in the N Field sector reservoir model in which a TIF was observed. In this study, history matching workflows were developed to consider the dynamic nature of TIF development during waterflooding. The reservoir and geomechanical models were improved and validated via the observed TIF onset and propagation periods. The history-matched models produced can be used with confidence in subsequent studies. The practical workflows and guidelines developed here can be used in waterflooding operations during the modelling, design, and planning stages. The novelty of this study is the coupling approach of different complex processes done in order to capture dynamic changes during waterflooding operations. A similar history matching study could not be found in the literature.

show abstract

The Impact of Sandstone Strength's Behavior as a Result of Temperature Changes in Water Injectors

Cited by 5 publications

References 6 publications

Thermal Fracturing in High and Low Permeability Sandstone Reservoir in the North Sea

Thermal Fracturing in High and Low Permeability Sandstone Reservoir in the North Sea

The Integrated Approach to Formation Water Management 2: Field Applications and Best Practices

Efficient History Matching of Thermally Induced Fractures Using Coupled Geomechanics and Reservoir Simulation

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About